Author
Topic: Ghosts. Do you believe? (Read 2696 times)

Today I was watching one of those paranormal shows on TV and I got to wondering how many atheists/Christians believe in ghosts and I think I'm going to do a poll. During this show the paranormal team was saying the Lords Prayer and said prayers to 'bind' the spirit to a particular object.

I personally don't believe in ghosts. A lot of people who do believe in ghosts say they see the ghost wearing clothes, they can smell what the ghost use to do a lot (smoking a pipe, etc), not having a head (one from this show I watched today), etc. But if ghosts are spirits, wouldn't they be naked? I mean, clothing doesn't have a spirit and doesn't die. And if you die without your head, you spirit should still have it.

My finance thinks our house is haunted because he claims to have seen mysterious figures in the rooms, as well as heard strange sounds. But I don't think it's ghosts because I've never witnessed anything. Ghost hunters say certain people are more sensitive than others to feeling the ghosts' presence, and he's one of those artsy people who has a good imagination, and ghosts are real he'd probably be more sensitive to feeling them than me.

Do you guys believe; does anyone have a story about a haunting they experienced or anything like that? I'm curious.

Thanks,

M

Logged

"Great moments are born from great opportunities." Herb Brooks

I edit a lot of my posts. The reason being it to add content or to correct grammar/wording. All edits to remove wording get a strike through through the wording.

I'm with sheep extreme on this. But my husband says he's seen/experienced a ghost in the house we shared while in college. He said that late one night, he saw a figure on the steps from the first to the second floor and it passed through him and "felt" like a woman. One rather strange thing about this house is that when we first moved in, there were pennies all across the window sills, in the heating vents, any "opening" to a room.

Logged

"There is no use in arguing with a man who can multiply anything by the square root of minus 1" - Pirates of Venus, ERB

No I don't believe but I like the shows that deal with them for strictly entertainment purposes....Ghost Whisperer, Medium....though in my strict born-again Christian days I wouldn't even consider watching them. Now I just enjoy them for the entertainment they bring...nothing else. Someone online recommended Supernatural, but I tried watching it a few times but it doesn't do much for me.

I talked to a Christian guy that said he believes in ghosts because his girlfriend and her sister have seen and/or felt them so if there is ghosts, he feels then Jesus exists and is his lord and savior. I just don't see the proof and I wonder if it is something in the mind causing this.

It seems to me that most people who claim to see ghosts aren't exactly the most...trustworthy people? It's kinda like how the most UFO watchers seem to be rednecks who have been probed by green aliens. I'm sure I'm insulting someone here...

Personally, I do not believe in ghosts. I suppose something like them could exist..but thats outside of my experiences and I certainly can't put a definite judgement on it.And when I say something like them could exist, I mean tricks of the light or the brain recalling images of relatives, etc...

nope. I could travel the whole planet and go everywhere that is supposed to be haunted and never see ghost. If you believe this sort of crap and are open to being gullible you mistake a pile of rags as a ghost. etc. But no, sheer fantasy.

Before I go into this, I firmly declare that no, I dont believe in ghosts. That being said...

I think some of the problem with the idea of ghosts and other paranormal stuff is the way we approach them. For several months, there was a show I used to watch called "Haunting". The reason I would watch it week after week was to look for similarities. I was curious to see if the similarities I found would lead me to think in a certain direction about what these people were going through. To find something that ALL of them had in common so that I could apply some rationality to them. Now, granted, this is by no means a scientific study of paranormal activity, it was just me watching TV and using an analytical approach to what was occuring. I have never spent any time looking anything up about ghosts, as I dont really care about that subject, but I do love to learn things that I dont know. I think of it much the same as people who watch shows like "24" with plot lines that twist and turn from week to week, all the while trying to figure out what is going on. (Just so you dont all think I am nuts).

Anyway, I found very little to be consistent in all the shows, and most of the people I think were nut jobs, but I would say a majority of them had children involved in some way. I would also say that a lot of the ghosts, while they were alive, had traumatic experiences, which led them to be "haunting" a house. Again, this is not scientific, it was just me watching TV, thinking about it logically to trying and explain some of it without the slightest bit of evidence to back it up, other than the show. (Really, Im not nuts!)

I came up with 2 possibilities, just thinking about it from the "data" (HAHA) I got from the TV shows.

1. What if a human brain, during times of extreme stress can imprint some sort of magnetic field on an area or a physical object. Much like a magnet, when touching something metal can impart some of its magnetism to the metal object (Hysteresis). During some of the shows, people would bring in "Paranormal investigators" with magnetic field detectors that would be going bananas wherever the people in the house said the "ghosts" were. And if this was the case, other people may be able to "pick up" on these signals that are either strong or weak forces. Again, most of these shows had children involved so I rationalized that maybe children could pick up on them easier than adults. How they take shape, I have no idea. Is it true? No I dont think so, but I tend not to toss every supernatural experience that people have into the scrap heap without giving it a thurough logical overview in my own mind.

2. What if houses or objects have something like a "physical memory" (not the same as the computer term). What if a person, again under extremes of stress can impart memory or experience on an area which could be recalled and even amplified by specific types of people. Children or perhaps people already under stress may pick them up better than others. Stress and fear both have the ability to cause our heart rate to go up, our senses to heighten, our bodies to tense up in preparation for action. Why would it be such a stretch to think it could heighten our ability to sense things that we dont know about yet?

Bottom line. Do I believe in ghosts or supernatural spirits that are somehow trapped between this world and the next? No way. Do I believe that some (a few maybe) could really be experiencing something beyond our ability to describe it logically and scientifically? Yep, as scientists, we don't know everything yet, so I think we have to at least concede the possibility that they are experiencing something that we cant, as yet, explain. Someday we might know more, but for now, I think we could safely giggle to ourselves about the whole idea of supernatural hauntings and ghosts.

Logged

Whenever events that are purported to occur in our best interest are as numerous as the events that will just as soon kill us, then intent is hard, if not impossible to assert. NDT

One night during the harvest moon in October I was with my step brothers and my dad. My dad told us a scary story about the southern wind in our area. How when it blew warm it would blow off the dirt from the grave sites and the spirits would rise out of the grave. Story sound familier? So dad wanted us to go outside to see the spirits rise out of the graves. My stepbrother and I went outside to check it out and of course we were going along with it for fun and we went outside to walk around. Of course my dad said that an indian grave sight was close by were we lived. So with that in mind we went out and saw something but I am sure it was in our heads. Then my older step brother took one of those wig holders and put it on his head with a coat on to hold it in place.

Ghosts were made up to scare us for fun. I think humans love to be scared and these are made up to scare us just like the bible is made up to scare us and help us feel better also. It is not only fun and scary but it's not real and we know it and Christians know it and are too afraid to admit it.

Of course that is my opionion on this matter and one of the reasons I am an atheist.

First of all, i'm so sorry that i have to bumb an old thread like this.

It's because i'm interested in this topic and it doesn't feel right to start a same new topic.I just want to share my personal experience.

Since i'm an atheist and really don't believe in God,Kinda felt stupid when i have to say this.Yes, i believe in ghost, because i've seen one.Well, you know... Seeing is believing.

I know what i saw. It's not human nor animals (And i'm not drinking or smoke weed)

When i was on one camping trip in a forest.At midnight. I saw a figure like an infant walking around inside the forest, naked, kinda glowing (at least i can see it in the dark) and a bit transparent.Just about 10 feet from where i stand.

Well, of course, i tried to find any logical explanation.

In my theory (I'm sorry i don't have anything to support my statement, after all, this is just me trying to do logic with myself)

Just like sound, Human hearing range only 20 - 20.000 HertzBelow that range is Infrasonic, Above that range is Ultrasonic, which humans can't hear. But some animals could.Fortunately we have device to detect those.

Now, I think, this "Creature" (Ghost, if u will) , maybe... Is something like "Infrasonic or Ultrasonic" term for our eyes.(I'm sorry, english is not my primary language, i'll be having a hard time to explain in right scientific words)Which is out of human vision range. (Maybe have something to do with inability to reflect light)Maybe that's why we can't see it, but certain people with certain "sensitivity" couldAnd since there's no device to detect it. I guess we're stuck.

Sorry, i'm not a scientist or something,Maybe i'm just saying somethin stupid and doesn't make any sense.But then again. I really saw this "Creature".And i know maybe in this forum nobody gonna believe me anyway.

Have you been to a optometrist lately? I have a few scars on my eyeballs from metal dust and have had them removed with a picking needle at the EM room.

I gotta tell you, getting drunk and going for a walk in a dark room produces some interesting results. but hey that's me.

Logged

The classical man is just a bundle of routine, ideas and tradition. If you follow the classical pattern, you are understanding the routine, the tradition, the shadow, you are not understanding yourself. Truth has no path. Truth is living and therefore changing. Bruce lee

I do believe in hallucinations, sensory deprivation, sleep deprivation, drugs, food poisoning, fever and psychoses, and all manner of other things that cause hallucinations.

All kinds of ways a 'normal' mind can believe it sees things, even before you throw in abnormal/chemical influences.

And all kinds of ways hysteria can spread among impressionable people. Not least groups of people who're intoxicated.

If I ever saw a ghost (or heard 'words from god', or whatever), I'd be much more interested in trying to remember what I ate today, finding the cell phone and getting out into fresh air to make a 911 call for medical attention, if I couldn't figure out why I was hallucinating, and it wouldn't stop. "Hello, 911? I'm hallucinating, and I don't know why. Could you send someone to maybe pick me up and take me to a hospital, and see what's wrong? I'll be right here in the front yard, hugging my knees, trying not to freak out...."

Ever stayed up way too late driving, and started to 'see' things running onto the road? Has happened to me way too many times. Blowing plastic bag becomes 'person' or 'animal' easily enough at 2:00am, when I should have been looking for a place to pull over and take a nap.

Ever deliberately been put into a sensory deprivation environment? It's kind of interesting. You should try it. Just not behind the wheel.

To a fatigued or chemically imbalanced mind, dreams and old memories can fuse with 'reality' easily enough. Especially a suitably superstitious mind that makes no allowances for its own defects in perception, and has been primed with ghost stories and other materials.

freakygin, it's okay to start a new thread instead of trying to resurrect an old one.

I've no idea what you saw. It's completely outside of my own experiences and seems impossible.

Now whether or not I believe in ghosts is of no importance. Either they exist or they don't. The part of me that wants the world to be weird would love for them to be real. The part of me that lives here n this planet has no reason at the moment to think that they are.

I'd also like to be a big fan of very real UFO's and bigfoot. Alas, I can't, because I haven't seen any evidence that they are real either.

I've no idea how to prove that they exist. Even personal experience seems inadequate unless the ghostly figure walks up, starts talking to you and explains WTF is going on.

I tend to think that the human mind can fool itself. That isn't an indictment against you, freaky, or anyone else. Brains are like that, and can fool us on a regular basis. How many times have you awoke from a dream that, once conscious, you know was ridiculous, but while sleeping it made all the sense in the world. You use that same brain while awake, and to presume it would never f*ck with itself, and hence you, is probably unsafe.

My father, dying of cancer, had many experiences with seeing things. He knew they weren't real until right towards the end, when he could no longer distinguish between reality and and the stuff in his cancer-addled head. He said people, perfect strangers, would appear to just walked in the house and disappear from view by going into other rooms. He knew they weren't real because nothing like that would happen on a daily basis. And he knew they weren't real because nobody else ever noticed them. But when we talked about it, he was always astonished by how real they appeared at the time.

Now of course he was very ill and his facilities were not intact, but he wasn't so far out of it that he couldn't identify that it was a false reality. Those of us who have sounder minds and bodies tend to assume we are immune from such self-deception, but maybe we're not. And without a reference point, maybe we just can't tell that we're making it up.

Of course now you have me hoping that something similar will happen to me so I can be just as perplexed. I hate knowing everything

Logged

It isn't true that non-existent gods can't do anything. For instance, they were able to make me into an atheist.

One rather strange thing about this house is that when we first moved in, there were pennies all across the window sills, in the heating vents, any "opening" to a room.

A favorite quote from early in the 'Ghostbusters' movie... 'No human could have stacked books like this.'

Someone with an obsessive/compulsive disorder, or some spectrum autism would readily walk around putting pennies in everything. As would all manner of something we often call 'children'. Why would a kid put a peanut butter sandwich in the VCR??? The answer is right there in the question: 'a kid'.

Experiment: Give a bored seven year old a big jar of pennies, and leave him alone.

Have you given thought to where the ghosts came from, where they are now? Why can they not interact with the physical world? Is there any logical reason for their existence?

I know... It sounds pretty stupid when i really have no idea about that.I don't know where they came from, nor where they are now. It's just that one time only, i saw such strange "Creature".About the interacting with physical world, many of my friends claim that they often experience some "disturbing" event. Things like there's someone knocking on bathroom door when actually there's no one around, etc.But since i haven't seen or experienced it personally, i can't say anything about that. (If i did, i would thought it's just another prank, most likely)

I'd rather think of them as "Creature" than ghost. Very shy creature perhaps.I really don't think it's the spirit of the dead.

(This is all based on my own assumption)

According to my country's myth."They" tend to stay in area which is still pure (Not many humans)Because they can't stand humans.

Well, of course, i also tried to find them (Just pure curiousity)Some people said things like i have to train my sixth sense or try open it forcefully,Which including some kind of ritual or enchant some spells.Which i won't do, because i have a life. And i'm too lazy for that

freakygin, it's okay to start a new thread instead of trying to resurrect an old one.

Sorry there, next time i would start a new topic instead

I've no idea how to prove that they exist. Even personal experience seems inadequate unless the ghostly figure walks up, starts talking to you and explains WTF is going on.

That's what i've been telling myself

I tend to think that the human mind can fool itself. That isn't an indictment against you, freaky, or anyone else. Brains are like that, and can fool us on a regular basis. How many times have you awoke from a dream that, once conscious, you know was ridiculous, but while sleeping it made all the sense in the world. You use that same brain while awake, and to presume it would never f*ck with itself, and hence you, is probably unsafe.

I agree,Quote from the Matrix"What is real? If real is what you can feel, smell, taste and see, then 'real' is simply electrical signals interpreted by your brain"

But then again,You know, it'll be hard to admit if there's something wrong with my brain that time. Because i ate the usual stuff and really feel sane back then It almost feels like declaring myself insane.

I've seen lots of weird shit I could very easily chalk up to ghosts, but my rational brain, yes I have one tells me to chalk it all up to coinkadinks.. I've lived in a bunch of houses over 100 yrs old so I chalk it up to King Features Syndicate and the cartoon called Casper.

Logged

You better believe it's not butter or you'll burn in hell forever and EVER! Get on your knees right now and thank GOD for not being real!

I do not believe in ghosts as in them being the "souls" or spirits of the deceased, but I do not think it's out of the realm of possibility that spirits could in fact exist. When I refer to spirits I am simply speaking of unseen forces or powers that are not readily perceivable and may not even be terrestrial.

At my father-in-law's memorial, a cousin stood up and related that two dead family members had visited her. She is a pretty buttoned-down person, not at all the type who gets abducted by aliens or sees visions. So, I don't think there are ghosts, but she says she saw them.